Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance Honors Those Lost to Violence

Today is the tenth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which honors those of the transgender community lost to violence. Several recent incidents of violence against transgender individuals makes the day more poignant.

Yesterday, a former Memphis police office pleaded not guilty in the beating of a transwoman, Duanna Johnson, according to the Associated Press. The beating, which took place at a local Memphis jail, was caught on tape by a surveillance camera. At the beginning of this month Johnson was shot and killed in Memphis by an unknown assailant.

Friday night, Lateisha Green was shot and killed outside a house party in Syracuse, according to Edge Boston. Though an investigation is underway, Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund Executive Director Michael Silverman told Edge Providence that "Lateisha's senseless death demonstrates the increased risk of violence transgender people face."

According to Edge Boston, at least 15 people have been murdered in transgender related hate crimes this year.

3/25/2015 Afghan Woman Beaten to Death for Burning Koran - A 27-year-old woman ‎who reportedly burned a copy of the Koran inside of a riverside shrine in Kabul, Afghanistan was brutally beaten and burned alive on Thursday.
Shocking videos quickly spread on social media showing crowds of men surrounded by hundreds of onlookers assaulting the 27-year-old Farkhunda with bricks and sticks and repeatedly kicking her. . . .